


Vault Hunters aren't born, they're specced

by AHundredHollowThings



Series: Sword and Shield [2]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, First Impressions, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 11:02:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHundredHollowThings/pseuds/AHundredHollowThings
Summary: What started as an attempt to write character drama and smut turned into creating a xReader fic that roughly follows the events in Borderlands 2, as someone who really isn't prepared for life on Pandora ends up getting swept along with the plot.This part covers what happens when the Reader's field-science job gets them stranded on Pandora and in the company of the main characters.
Series: Sword and Shield [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975705
Kudos: 1





	Vault Hunters aren't born, they're specced

**Author's Note:**

> This became a bit of a writing challenge after a 'no 3rd person pronouns used' start. Later parts will likely rely on some anatomy assumptions (a strap-on is going to make an appearance), but I'm planning to keep gender fully ambiguous throughout. Anything else will be a specific spinoff.  
> There will smut, misunderstandings, and Communication TM.
> 
> Tags and description to update once I get more chapters aligned.

A voice echoed through the metal of the bus to your hiding spot in the luggage hold. “Engine’s shot. This thing isn’t going anywhere.” It sounded young - teenage girl? Someone from the latter group that came and shot up the area then. The first wave of bandits all sounded like men, what you could hear over the screams of your colleagues.

A woman’s voice spoke clearly from outside, “Let’s look for anything useful. We can still bring a lot back to Sanctuary in the technicals.”

The scraping of plastic on metal drowned out anything else as cases were pulled from the already open hold. You tried to keep your breathing as quiet as possible, not risking moving until you saw one of the cases next to you move. You pulled yourself back, scrunching into a tight ball behind what cover remained.

“Wait, I saw something.” You froze. This new voice was deep and rasping, like an amplified whisper. You half heard others questioning on what he saw. “Movement behind the cases.” You realised belatedly that you had gasped in surprise before recoiling. You were sure you had got clear before the case had been removed enough to see you. “A bandit, perhaps?” So, these people weren’t bandits, but dangerous enough to take out a whole raiding party?

“SCARED BUNNY WON’T LEAVE ITS BURROW.” The bellowing voice shot a renewed fear through you. His shouts were definitely like some of the bandits that had attacked.

“Good point. A bandit would’ve jumped out trying to shoot us all up by now. Maybe it is a skag or something?”

“Or a survivor. Doesn’t look like that area got shot up too badly.”

“But whose fingers do we risk to find out?”

“Oh, pshh! We don’t need to risk anyone’s fingers to find out if it’s a person or a skag.” This man’s voice was a cocky drawl, and likely would’ve put you on edge if you weren’t already eyeballs-deep in terrified. "It’s simple. We just toss a grenade in there. Skag’ll eat it up, boom, no more problem. Person’s gotta have enough sense to try to chuck it back out.”

“What? Axton, no, don’t you’ll-” but the woman’s objections were cut off by the skid of metal and echoing clang as a grenade bounced off the rear side of the compartment.

Time slowed in your heightened state of terrified alertness, the grenade obnoxiously spinning to a lazy standstill a short distance from your protective wall of cases. But nowhere near protective enough for this. All worries about discovery by these dangerous strangers were pushed to the side in the face of the immediate and most certainly lethal threat of the grenade.

With a short, sharp movement, you knocked the grenade hard, back towards the rear wall of the luggage compartment. It successfully rebounded with a deafening clang and skidded beyond your sight and, you hoped, back outside and far enough from the vehicle that you wouldn’t be injured in the blast.

“See, person.”

“Ah, I see, a ruse. You did not remove the pin, so there’s no danger?”

“Nope.” There was a dull thunk and a moment later the distant sound of an explosion. “A’course I removed the pin, otherwise it wouldn’t have worked on a skag.”

“But then it would have blown up the bus,” scolded the woman from earlier, “but now we know it’s a person in there and they still haven’t responded other than having to throw back a live grenade!” After that there was an uncomfortable silence while you supposed the group decided your fate.

“Well if they haven’t said anything by now, I don’t think they’re gonna. Someone has to try and get them out of there.”

“Don’t look at me - no way I’ll fit in through that hatch. It’s gonna need someone skinny…” The gruff voice with what you took as a Spanish accent trailed off, pointedly.

The rough voice spoke again, “Let’s just continue. With nothing to hide behind, it will be easy.”

“What, you scared of climbing into a luggage rack with some scared chump?” the man who had thrown the grenade taunted.

“Of course I’m not scared. But to rush in head-first is _unnecessary_.”

“Well what if they have explosives in the luggage or something? Could blow up the whole thing before we could even loot it.”

“What’s the deal, Axton? Why do you insist on this, ridiculous plan?”

“More like what’s _your_ deal, Zee? Normally you love ridiculous plans, especially if then involve sneaking into confined spaces. Also, Gaige has just gone in there anyway, so waiting might not be the best option.”

“What?!”

Again, you froze up, now hearing the sounds of approaching shuffling, and, oddly, clanging?

“Hey there!” A face emerged from around the end of one of the equipment cases. You screamed, uncoiling your legs to shove the case away and them with it. Plastic crunched. Was that the reinforced equipment box breaking!? “Son of a _bitch_! Hey, uh, guys - lil’ help? My arm’s stuck in this stupid thing.”

More scraping and grumbling and you heard her speak again. “Ugh, and now there’s broken glass everywhere. What was in there?”

A heavy, distorted sigh preceded ‘Zee’ speaking again. “I will retrieve them.” His next words were much closer, obviously directed at you, “If you still value your life, you won’t repeat that.”

You tried to keep as still and calm as you could. Whoever these people were, whatever they wanted, they could surely follow through on a threat like that. Panicking again would just get you killed.

Something entered your field of vision, but it wasn’t a face. Just a blank expanse of dark plastic. “Sorry,” you began, hoping that arguably already attacking one of their group hadn’t already sealed your fate. But then something grabbed your ankle, and again you couldn’t help yourself flinching. Away from it at least, this time. The visor disappeared, and you found yourself dragging a figure with the same blank mask towards you as their grip on your ankle didn’t relent.

A panicked cry of “Zer0!” came from outside, but you were too busy being pulled into a grapple by the dark-suited figure. Overpowered and repositioned, he launched you from the luggage hold with the same two-legged shove you had used earlier. Skidding through debris, you dropped, rolled to a standstill, face full of dusty earth. Coughing, you managed to lift yourself up onto your elbows, wincing at the cuts and scrapes on your skin.

“Hah! Suck it, jerkwad. Don’t mess with Vault Hunters!”

_Oh fuck._ You probably would’ve been sick if you still had the energy. Instead you raised your head, hoping to persuade your stomach not to, voice wavering, “You’re Vault Hunters?”

“Duh! And we just saved your ungrateful butt from the bandits that killed all your buddies.”

“Gaige!”

“ _What_?”

“Everyone else is dead?”

“Yeah, those bandits were tearing your guys apart. Probably would’ve found you too if we hadn’t showed up when we did to kill ‘em all. In fact, I’m surprised anyone did survive. You sure you’re not a bandit try’na trick us?” she asked, face coming right up to yours again, “you sure kick like one.”

“N-no! No, I’m not a bandit. I’m a surveyor!” Your answer was met with laughter from the entire group around you, with you only able to stare in helpless confusion.

“Well, you sure don’t look like a robot to me,” answered the sandy haired man whose voice you recognised as ‘Axton’, “but if you’re a surveyor, you gotta be here working for Hyperion, right?”

“Some of this equipment sure looks Hyperion,” said the woman whose name you hadn’t yet heard spoken, pulling a theodolite out of one of the open luggage crates and turning it over in her hands. Her hands, which were covered with one glove, and one pattern of blue swirling tattoos. _Siren._ Oh you were in way over your head here. “So,” she fixed you with a hard stare as you managed to sit upright, “Who do you work for? Only Hyperion has the air support to travel through this area without any kind of protection on the ground.”

“I- I work for IPEPA.”

The others looked confused, but the woman responded, surprised, “The Interplanetary Environmental Protection Agency?”

“Yes! We were supposed to be doing a survey of the impact of the eridium mining operations on the local environment. Hyperion had to give us clearance through atmo, but our funding comes from elsewhere. Frankly, when it comes to investigating a specific corp’s impact like this, it’s usually sponsored by a rival company who thinks we can dig up enough dirt to strengthen their claim instead.”

She crouched in front of you, face to face. “So how come you were in this area without any backup? How were you hoping to survive?”

“We didn’t think we’d need weapons! If a corp takes direct action against an IPEPA survey team, that’s usually enough to drop them right in it, and if Hyperion had decided to kill us anyway, it’s not like us being armed would have made any difference.”

“So instead they send you down to the planet with no defence against bandits so they’d kill you instead…” she turned away and spat out the last word, “bastard.”

“Wh- you think this was a set-up?”

“Seems pretty likely.”

“ _Dammit_. I mean, we all knew that corporate smarm-bag was being way too helpful, but we figured it was just to butter us up so we’d be more inclined to give a favourable report!” You sighed heavily. “Should’ve known something was up at “oh, and if the wildlife gives you any trouble, just honk the horn real loud, that’ll spook em right off. Pandora’s reputation is exaggerated,” yeah, right…”

I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she tilted her head, voice taking on a more sympathetic tone, “but at least you’re safe now.”

“ _Am I?_ ” You couldn’t help the nervous glance around at the others. The girl, Gaige, seemed to have gotten over her immediate delight in your injuries at least, regarding you curiously now. The rest had bored of your conversation and continued stealing equipment from your vehicle and loading it into the ones they had evidently arrived in. As your gaze reached back to the bus, you saw the figure of ‘Zer0’ sat on the edge of the luggage hatch, elbows on knees in a hunch. Even with no facial features visible, you felt he was probably glaring daggers at you. Flinching, you turned back to the siren.

“As safe as you really can be on Pandora at any rate. If Jack wants you dead, that’s basically a free pass into Sanctuary, if you want it. I wouldn’t recommend taking your chances alone in the Badlands.”

“Y-yeah. I can see why that would be a bad idea… but, what do I even do once I get there? I’m no Vault Hunter.”

“Not everyone in Sanctuary is a Vault Hunter. If nothing else, this equipment of yours that we’re bringing in should earn you your meals for a while.”

“Hey! We looted this fair and square!”

“Not helping, Salvador!” She turned back to you after shouting over her shoulder. “The point is, there’s people there who’ll keep you safe. And we help keep Sanctuary safe. So, if you’re as scared of us as you look, that means Sanctuary’s in pretty formidable hands, right?”

You gave a nervous laugh as you glanced around you again. “I guess so.”

“I’m Maya.” She stood and offered you her left, tattooed, hand. The phrase ‘formidable hands’ was still ringing in your brain with the vague knowledge of what sirens were capable of. You held your own left hand out, closing the distance slowly, but eventually making contact. She completed the grip and helped you to your feet as you introduced yourself. She smiled in a way that made you wonder whether that was some sort of test. _Could sirens tell if people were good-intentioned, or how dangerous they were, with a touch of the hand or something? Probably…_

“And I’m Gaige!” The red-haired girl bounded over to you extending a _robotic hand - what is this, do all Vault Hunters have dangerous left hands?_ “Sorry for spookin’ ya back there. I forget how intimidating I can be!” She gestured to herself proudly with her right hand, and you smiled at the quick humour and forgiveness both. The handshake did hurt a little this time, but that seemed to be down to enthusiastic movement of metal, and the small cuts that were still smarting on your hand from your tumble.

“And that’s Zer0,” continued Maya, as he walked past you uncomfortably close but without making contact at all, the height difference blatantly obvious, “and don’t worry, they know exactly how intimidating they are, and are probably just pissed you caught them off guard for a second there.”

“Oh, uh. Sorry. You startled me. And I was still just getting used to the idea that you might not be here to kill me.”

“Keeping you alive, proving more of a challenge. To kill? Effortless.”

You weren’t really sure how to respond to that, resorting to “Uhhhhh…”

“Heh, that’s good news for you. Zer0 hates it when a kill’s too easy. So you’re definitely safe.” Gaige elbowed you with her non-metal arm this time, but you still winced as it hit the arm that you’d landed on. She followed Zer0 towards the others, who were now waiting at the two open-topped trucks.

You hung back, whispering to Maya, “So, ‘they’? I don’t wanna start using the wrong pronouns after all that mess.”

“Ah, you don’t need to worry about that with Zer0. They’ve specifically said it doesn’t matter when I asked, and almost everyone uses ‘he’ anyway.”

“Thanks, at least I can’t mess up there.”

“And yourself? Not many ask ‘round these parts.”

You filled her in while you both carried the last couple of equipment boxes over to the others.

Maya handled the final round of introductions. Introducing you to the others, then them to you.

Salvador was the gruff-voiced man: short, bearded and heavily-muscled. He gave the impression that without the spiked-up hair, he’d be broader on the shoulders than he was tall. It seemed the news that the CEO of Hyperion had tried to get you killed was all he needed to enthusiastically consider you an ally, although his handshake was physically terrifying.

Axton was introduced next, apparently quite pleased that his grenade had not killed you, and pointing out that your survival meant his faith in you wasn’t misplaced. His surprisingly polite and professional handshake was undermined by the arm he slung around your shoulders. Great. Not only had he come closest to _actually_ killing you so far, but now he was flirting with you.

Politely finishing the handshake and ducking out from under his arm, you found yourself face-to-chest with ‘just Krieg, don’t worry, he won’t hurt you’. This was becoming a theme now, huh? However, after allowing you to back up, he extended a hand towards you, muscles twitching with the same kind of careful restraint you had used when reaching to Maya’s hand. His hand entirely enclosed your own for the tensely gentle handshake.

“Don’t worry… it’s a good touch…” he growled, leaning down to look you in the eye.

There was no way you were concealing the fear on your face with that forced smile, but nobody seemed to actually take offense.

“Great! Now everyone’s acquainted, let’s get our new friend and this salvage over to Sanctuary.” Maya got into the driving seat of one of the trucks.

Axton climbed up into the only other thing resembling a ‘seat’ on the vehicle, with Gaige hopping into the back, waving you up to join her. You clambered in, concerned by the lack of anything but the sides to hold onto.

The other three had already taken their places in the other truck and started driving, with the one you were now passenger in following shortly after.

You didn’t get much chance to get too lost in your worried thoughts, as Gaige was enthusiastically walking you through the process of getting your Echo disconnected from corporate channel affiliation, and set up on the Crimson Raiders’ public comms network. Mostly reeling in silence, you tried to follow along with what basically amounted to a ‘you’re dead to Hyperion now’ data scrub. Which didn’t involve anywhere near the amount of deletion you would have expected. You even got to keep the high-end data-analysis suite installed on your Echo’s heads-up display, since Gaige didn’t think Hyperion would exactly be sweeping the planet’s surface for activation of statistics software.

There was a period of terrified ducking as the Rakks circling overhead dove for the trucks. Axton swung around to bring to bear what you now realised was a mounted machine gun, the noise startling above your head. Bullets and large spiked disks from Salvador’s turret tore through the creatures before they could make contact, but you still came uncomfortably close to being headbutted by a flying corpse. It was at this point that it occurred to Gaige to hand you a personal shield generator and show you how to calibrate it. With the knowledge that all of the Vault Hunters carried these, their ability to survive these situations started to seem more plausible.

After that, the journey mostly came down to trying not to get your existing injuries jostled into the harder bits of the vehicle (which amounted to all bits of the truck you were anywhere near) while Gaige compared your EchoSim collections and enthused about robotics.

Until you slowed to a stop.

You were outside a set of gates which signposted Sanctuary, among other things, but attention was pointed at the ramshackle structure next to it.

“Man, those idiots just never learn!” declared Axton as he hopped down from his seat and launched a device that assembled itself into yet another machine gun turret, which he invited to “Chew ‘em up, honey!”

The others all jumped from the vehicles to join the fray, with you doing your best to stay as low as possible in the truck bed, once again sheltering behind the reinforced equipment crates your team had brought. Even if you wanted to, it’s not like you had anything to contribute to the fight.

Meanwhile Gaige was trying her best to get you to ‘watch dammit’ from off the back of the truck, with you managing to angle your head such that you could see her without leaving your cover. Raising her metal arm, with a shout of “Super Robot Violence Fun Time!” a monstrous metal figure materialised. Its long arms sported huge claws, and it was only a moment before it flew into the fray, presumably to dismember anything it could hit with those claws.

It was not long before the noise of combat stopped, and you raised your head cautiously up to watch the Vault Hunters… looting the area. Of course.

Well, Maya had implied the equipment from the bus would count as something you contributed, so now was probably not the time to join in whatever salvage effort this amounted to. In fact, as everyone got back in their seats and set off, Axton leant down to you offering a shield he’d presumably just looted.

“Hey, Newbie. Snagged ya a better shield than that old Bandit thing. Ten years in the Dahl military taught me that you always want a Booster if you can get one.”

He grinned and winked as you accepted it, and you saw Gaige stick her tongue out at him. Whatever that was would be something to worry about later, if you were going to be stuck on this death world you’d take all the shield you could get.

“Thanks,” you said, perhaps over-egging the hesitant tone, but wanting to make it abundantly clear you weren’t flirting back at him in case that was his intention here. Still, you happily affixed it to the other side of your belt and activated it alongside the first.

Pleasingly, your Echo’s HUD displayed the shield capacities separately, which allowed you to see which would become depleted first if you did get attacked. Now you noticed the different special effects on the shields: the one Gaige gave you apparently gave increased melee damage once it was depleted _(odd effect for a shield to have…)_ , and the one Axton had just handed you dropping Boosters when hit that would restore shield capacity. From that you surmised the shields wouldn’t trigger their effects if a different shield was damaged, but perhaps the boosters would affect other shields? This was definitely something to experiment with, but ideally in a situation that wouldn’t involve you getting too shot at.

You were pulled from your thoughts by the realisation that Gaige and Axton were silently staring at you, jaws dropped.

“What-?” you began to ask, but Gaige answered faster.

“You just motherfucking STACKED SHIELDS!?”

“Y-yes? Should I not have?” You were already starting to disconnect the ‘uppermost’ shield.

“‘Should I not have?’” Axton mumbled in imitation of you, “More like ‘How the hell did you do that?’ You can’t just WEAR TWO SHIELDS! Gaige, back me up here - there’s some sciency explanation for why that’s just not possible, right?”

“Yeah! I don’t technically know what it is, I’m more into robotics than classical shield theory, but that’s just not how shields work! You can make a bigger shield out of smaller ones, but that needs a big power source. And then it’s all one big shield! You can’t just _stack_ them.”

“I dunno what to tell you…” you shuffled around your settings to see if there was something obvious you were missing, “my HUD just says this is fine?”

By now you had parked outside the opening in a large wall, presumably the entrance to Sanctuary, and the others were milling around the vehicles, turning their attention to the argument that was currently happening.

Gaige was once again fiddling with your Echo settings. “Maybe it’s just a glitch in the display. If there’s something wrong with yours, that could explain why our HUDs show the shields as stacked.” She looked around at the others. “You guys are seeing this shit too, right?”

“Simple to test it. Damage the shield and observe, if they are apart.”

You turned to answer Zer0 before they did something drastic, “Yes but maybe we could try that late-OW!”

Gaige had produced a hammer and bonked it against your head. It did hurt, but you were absolutely sure that without the shield you would be bleeding or have a concussion at _least_. Although for all you knew at this point you did have a concussion, because a hexagonal grid flashed in front of your vision and a domed device materialised from one of the shields, skidding past Gaige and landing on the floor. Your HUD showed the extent the shield was now depleted.

“Well, that’s the Dahl working,” contributed Axton, distracting you sufficiently that the sound of a gunshot was the first warning you got before another jolt of pain in the back of your head.

Again, the flash of a glowing hexagonal grid, this time accompanied by a shattering sound. It echoed, and you were unsure whether it was a notification and or an artefact of the close proximity gunshot ringing in your ears. Or perhaps your brain had decided to go straight to metaphorical hallucinations as by all rights your skull should now be in pieces.

Swinging around, you came face-to-face with the pistol in Zer0’s hand. Without pause in your movement, you backhanded the gun from their hand. Oddly, not feeling the sting. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!” you demanded, standing up on the bed of the truck so you actually had to look down at them. “Are you SERIOUSLY just going to shoot at me to figure out if it’s a glitch!? What if it had been!? I’d be DEAD NOW!”

“Easy there, Twitchy,” started Axton, having climbed down to the truck bed next to you and putting one hand on your shoulder in what was probably supposed to be a calming gesture.

Instead, you jabbed your elbow back at him with a scream of “DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!” You turned far enough around to see him reeling back, hand relocated from your shoulder to over his jaw. Still with half an eye on Zer0, you continued ranting, “I’ve had enough of this - can I just have FIVE MINUTES on this planet where nobody tries to blow me up, or shoot me, or tackle or make a pass at me, or otherwise get up in my face with all this TERRIFYING BULLSHIT!”

For a few moments, you just panted, getting your breath back.

Axton muttered curses under his breath, massaging his jaw. Everyone else stood alert and ready, but quiet.

Once your breathing was starting to calm down a bit, you felt a wave of tiredness overcome your previous adrenaline rush. Dropping to your knees, you rested your arms on the side of the truck for your head to flop down onto. You gave a tired groan as the exhaustion and pain and everything awful that had happened today caught up with you. Also _oh crap you just attacked Vault Hunters. Again!_

“Hah! Looks like someone can’t handle their Roid shields,” barked Salvador, laughing as he slapped the truck bed in apparent lieu of your back. “C’mon, let’s get you somewhere to crash so the rest of us can start finally unloading these crates. I wanna get paid already!”

“Paid…” realisation brought up enough anger to raise your head again to ask, “Did you _know_ we were going to be there? You were only there to loot this stuff?”

Maya interceded, voice calm but firm, “We had a tip-off something was going on, probably involving Hyperion. It could have been weapons getting moved, maybe even the vault key. But it was you, set up to get ambushed by bandits who likely had no idea what you were carrying either. Now, go get some rest. Everything else can be sorted tomorrow. And I very much doubt we’ll be making use of this equipment without your help anyway.” After that, she instructed Gaige to show you to a bed, suggesting she grab an insta-health as it was probably best not to ‘inflict Dr Zed’ on you so soon. _Well, that was ominous._

She still seemed in high spirits as you followed after, trying to keep your attention on her, and not catch the eye of the others as they started to unload the cases. After she grabbed something out of a vending machine, she led you into a room piled high with tools and scrap metal.

“Okay, so to be honest this is mostly what I use as a workshop, but I sleep on the couch in here all the time and if you’re still freaked out you’ll probably be better off in here than in the HQ where all the beds are just… there, and unless you’re a heavy sleeper and it’s the ass end of the night then you’re _gonna_ get woken up by people talking nearby. So here,” she brushed some smaller tools off the arm of the sofa and pulled a blanket out from behind it, holding it out to you.

“Thanks,” you said, voice barely still working, as you took it, “and, uh, sorry I shoved you. Before. Aside from the hammer thing you’ve been really nice to me.”

“Ah, don’t sweat it. I remember how scary it is to have your life turned upside down. And I actually kinda _wanted_ to be a Vault Hunter. Also, good thing Deathtrap wasn’t out at the time because last time I got a serious shove like that he exploded them.” Impossibly your reserves of fear hadn’t yet run out, but it wasn’t long lasting, as Gaige was muttering something about ‘stupid Marcy, stupid crime-buster-bots’, before addressing you again, “Eh, that probably wouldn’t have happened anyway. The Holloways are big rich corporate types, and Marcie was a bully! You like, call corps out on their bullshit with science, right? I mean, it’s not as rad as fighting against them with science _directly_ , but it’s somethin’!” She pulled the red cylinder she’d gotten from the vending machine out of her pocket. “I’ll leave you to catch some z’s now. If you inject this stuff it’ll heal up all your cuts and scrapes no prob.”

Taking the syringe, you thanked her again before she left. Already being in a lot of pain made using the unusually large needle a bit easier. And you were already starting to feel better as you retreated under the blanket and hoped you’d actually be able to get a restful sleep.

\---

“Hey, Angel. What’s the progress of that team of eridium-hating cactus-huggers? Please tell me they got eaten by stalkers or something.”

“Not quite, Jack. Bandits spotted the unguarded transport and intercepted the team’s vehicle when they stopped to gather data. Everyone, and everything, was killed or taken.”

“Fine, fine. Not the irony I’d hoped for, but at least those bellyaching enviro-nerds will shut up about my eridium mines for a while. Heh. Dumbasses didn’t bring weapons to _Pandora_ , what a bunch of idiots.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm puzzling the rest of the work together, but this first chapter isn't likely to change without feedback (currently welcome. If people actually like this it'll help keep me motivated to make it into a complete work).


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